1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet member feeding cassette. More specifically, the present invention relates to a so-called universal sheet member feeding cassette which is loaded, for example, in the copier, printer, facsimile or the like and stores sheet members such as papers of arbitrary size therein, feeding the sheet members therefrom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A so-called universal cassette capable of storing sheet members of arbitrary size therein is disclosed, for example, in the Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 41319/1974 published on Nov. 13, 1974.
In this prior art, a guide plate extending in the direction of feeding paper is installed so as to be movable in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding paper. This guide plate contacts with one side edge in the direction of the width of the stored papers. When the size of the papers to be stored is changed, this guide plate is moved to match the size. Then, a cam plate and an operating plate are displaced in interlocking with the displacement of this guide plate. The position of the cam plate is detected by a switch, and a signal is withdrawn from the switch according to the size. A display of the operating plate is indicated through a window.
In this prior art, the guide plate can move in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding paper, and accordingly, this guide plate is positioned at a position responding to the width of the stored papers. For this reason, in the prior art, for example, both in the case where the B4-size papers are stored in a manner that the longitudinal direction thereof is the same as the direction of feeding paper and in the case where the B5-size papers are stored in a manner that the longitudinal direction thereof is orthogonal to the direction of feeding paper, the position of the guide plate is the same because of the same width of papers in spite of the difference in size. Accordingly, in the prior art, in such a case, the size cannot be discriminated to be indicated or cannot be detected.
This problem takes place between the letter-size paper and the legal-size paper.
As described above, in the universal cassette of the prior art, the guide plate detects the width of the paper in the direction orthogonal to the direction of feeding the paper to be stored, and therefore the size cannot always be automatically detected or indicated for all sizes of papers.